1) What a "family member" is in the Unification Church

We Unification Church members call each other "family members," right? What does the word "family member" mean? If you translate the Chinese characters then it means "the mouths that eat meals." So a family member is a brother you eat meals with, it's a family member you eat meals with. (14-164)

What do we call our church members when the Unification Church members gather? We call them family members. Don't we call them that? [Yes] What is a family member, a family member? It's not just a mouth that eats meals. Then what is a "family member"? You have to have a brotherhood relationship, you have to be born clinging to the same heart of your parents. Only by that you can be a family member. (155-211)

Today our Unification Church uses the name "family member." But you also call the members in your families at home "family member." Then what are we centered on that makes us call each other "family member"? We are calling "family member" centering on the love of God, on God's precious relationship and connection of wanting to love the human race, and centering on the ideal of the creation that God was seeking from the start. (25-287)

We are the family members of the Unification Church, as you know well. If we talk about family members, of course everyone has different assigned positions, but regardless of the environment or the situation one can't avoid going on a united course of life as the others in terms of life style and feelings. If there are a father, a son, and a daughter, then they do different tasks but their field of emotional life is the same. We know that one can be in the position of a child to his parents only if one can feel sad when the father feels sad even though the children's situation is different than his. In this viewpoint, we, the Unification Church members, say, "We are family members," but the original way the family members have to go, of course that way will unite with the purpose of going the way of the will. It is important to unite like that, but the emotional life should not be different.

Especially family members have to unite when the family is in a position where there can be difficulties. If the parents are sad, then the children and the family members living together will also be sad. If you want to solve that sadness, then you must take the position that you don't value anything more than that, not even the position you are assigned to or the work you are doing is more important. If you consider them more important, you can't say you are united with your parents. And from that point we cannot help but consider that your emotional life is separated from theirs.

But if no matter how much your external environment changes, you cast that all aside, and even if those things disappear, if you stand in the position where you can feel together with your parents the pain of their bodies and their minds because of the sorrow that they are going through by uniting your mind and will with theirs, then even if the family possesses nothing, has nothing to do, and has nothing to brag about, in reality a new thing to brag about is starting there. You can go a totally different way from this point. You must know that when you determine and start from there, a new way appears such that you can go over even the point of death appears.

We commonly call each other family members. Then if you look at it centering on family members, it's goes without saying that this is true for parents' sorrow, but it's also true for children's sorrow; the children's sorrow is not only their sorrow. The children's sorrow directly connects with the parents' sorrow. It doesn't matter if there are lots of kids and lots of other members. The whole family becomes involved if one person in the large family is struck with sorrow. They become harmonized there. Centering on sorrow they become one, not two.

We come to know that being united is something to brag about; it's the power of the family; it's the origin of the life of the family. If you think of one family member's sorrow as his own sorrow, if there are ten members and all ten of them think that way, then those ten members can't unite. Even if those ten members want peace or happiness or rest, there can't be any rest among them. If some person wants to rest peacefully, even if he finds his own peaceful rest, that can't be the foundation for the whole to rest peacefully. If there are ten places to find peace for each of the ten persons, that becomes the foundation for uneasiness and the basis for trouble or unhappiness between them. We know this through our lives and through the stories of our members about the situations of those around them. Viewing it from the position of being a family member and thinking about it centering on this content, we can see that we are different from worldly family members.

Worldly family members, those family members can be considered happy if they found the way of happiness in which they live together for their whole lives and help each other and comfort each other, unite in heart by that. In life they might be a family member or a family which brags much more than other family members or families. But the concept of family member which we talk about is different. We don't say family member centering on the world; we say it centering on the Heaven. We say it centering the parents of heaven. They are not the parents who rule one time period. They are the parents who govern history and rule history, and rule this era. Also they must rule the time after this, which is the future.

As we, who are attending the parents of heaven, think again, we must know that the parents of heaven are facing the fallen human race. We know we ourselves are not liberated from the realm of the fall. (60-14)

Today we use the phrase "family member" in the Unification Church. Don't we? What is this phrase "family member" centered on? It is centered on Jesus. Then was there a family member centering on Jesus? Is a mother a family member? Is a mother who didn't stand on the same road with Jesus a family member or not? Would she go together anyway, or go separate ways? [Go separate ways] What if the father is in that situation, would he go together, or go separate ways? [Go separate ways] Brothers, father, tribe, nation, and church will all go separate ways.

In spite of being the family which should be willing to die with Jesus, to go on the same road with him, was there a family member like that in the family that Jesus grew up in? A family has a father and a mother, a wife and a husband, and children. In the words of the Unification Church, this is "the four position foundation." That is Jesus' family. Then was there a family member whom Jesus could love? Did Jesus love his mother? No, he couldn't. Did he love his father? His father was a stepfather. Did he love his brothers? No, he couldn't love his brothers. Then who did he love? Although He came as the author, as the main character of love, when he tried to love his father and his mother more than anyone else, he couldn't.

Because the original Adam and Eve could not be educated about love by God, Jesus tried to teach about that love to his father and mother saying, "You have to love like this." But his mother and father didn't listen to the words of Jesus. In teaching love, it had to be done from a position of having passed through the ancient laws of Judaism to the fulfillment of the ideal of the temple. Because Jesus came as the main character of love as the representative of God, the father, the husband, and the brother, Mary's whole family should have attended Jesus as a representative of God. Jesus should have called Joseph like he would have a child, "Hey, Joseph!" It should have been like that. Joseph was not a father to Jesus.

Also to Mary, he should have spoken to her like to a child, "Mary!" It should have been like that. They were supposed to be educated. They were suppose to be educated? By the standard of the human heart, they were in a parent and child relationship, but by the standard of the heavenly heart, since Jesus was the subject, his brothers and his parents, everyone, had to be educated by Jesus according to the duty of love. He should have educated them saying his father and mother should live this way, his brothers should live this way, and among my siblings my object should be this and this kind of woman.

But did Jesus educate them like that? Is there a word about that in the Bible? Leaving out the whole leaves and taking just the sprouts, they are clamoring to go heaven. They are playing a strange game. When did Jesus love his father? Was there a father that Jesus wanted to love, a mother that Jesus wanted to love, bothers or neighbors that Jesus wanted to love? No there weren't. That's Jesus' sorrow. Also were there people, or a church, or a nation, or a tribe, or a family, or an object that Jesus could love? Were there? He couldn't escape from dying because the nation rejected him, his people rejected him, the church rejected him, the tribe rejected him, his relatives rejected him, his parents rejected him, and his brothers rejected him. He died when he had lost everything and was totally frustrated, but he died for "me"? He died because he wanted to? There are a lot of these false groups in the world. They killed him but they say he died for them. . . They are all insane. So our Unification Church has to fulfill the relationship of the family member. (51-187)

You call a person who joined the church a family member; how precious that is. I have said it before, but what kind of person is a family member? The phrase "family member" is centering on whom? It is not centering on yourselves. It's centering on Jesus who was beloved by God, the only value in the whole world that can't be traded even with the whole cosmos, the only son who came as a actual body with infinite treasure. It was impossible for God not to love him. If God's love was to appear, then it could appear through him, if God's way of triumph was to appear then it was through him, and if the standard of the origin of heaven and earth was to appear, it could be only through him. He is such an Absolute Being that nothing of God could appear without going through him.

We can only call someone a "family member" centering on him. "Family member" is not a phrase centering on the believers of the Unification Church. We say "family member" centering on the kind of relationship of value, and the personality like Jesus. If you look at it centering on Jesus, the older people are Jesus' parents, the people in the same age range are elder and younger brothers. We call it centering on Jesus who is the only value, who is in the position of infinite treasure. (17-19)

What is the "family member" that we talk about in the Unification Church? It's a phrase we call people who are standing in the position of true children who inherited the will of Jesus; it's a brother; it's a family. Then with our family members, with our brothers, how should we go the way? Jesus, in his life growing up since being born. . . Of course Jesus had brothers. He had brothers and parents, but he didn't think of them as the parents that heaven truly wanted, or the brothers that heaven truly wanted. He was thinking of the ideal parents and the ideal brothers, but in that time period, when Jesus looked at them centered on himself, when he asked whether they were brothers that he could love, and parents that he could love, they weren't. (156-42)

Today, why do we use the noun phrase "family member," and where did it start from? Especially young people should know this precisely. Jesus had a younger brother but he couldn't love him; he had parents but he couldn't love them; he had relatives, but he couldn't love them. We have to relieve his sorrow that there were churches, and his nation, and his people, but he couldn't love any of them. (22-295)

Today, you use the phrase family member but that is really a fearful phrase. If you do wrong in your course of belief, then you become an enemy who is blocking the position of Jesus who was testifying about the will of God. You become an enemy who blocks the position of Jesus who was fighting against Satan, and you become an enemy who blocks the will that was trying to restore the human race by going to the cross. Then what kind of person is Jesus' family member? He will be a person who resembles Jesus who was willing to give the word to everyone; he will be a person who can feel all of Jesus' heart which includes worrying, caring, and sighing when he was working so hard fighting against Satan.

Therefore, you must know that when Jesus was going the way of the cross, a person who just followed was not his family member, but a person who could understand Jesus heart until he went the way of the cross is the family member of Jesus. Also you must know that the biggest sorrow of Jesus in his thirty-some years of life on the earth was not having a true family member who testified for him, a family member who could fight against Satan with him, a true family member who could go along with him when he was carrying the cross to Golgotha, and a true family about whom he could brag to the heavens and the earth. Then what do you have to do these days? You must testify about God's will with full devotion just as Jesus was sorrowfully seeking to testify about God's will two thousand years ago. You must become the people who will realize God's will in place of Jesus.

You should have Jesus' heart of concern to accomplish the will of heaven, and know his heart as he fought with Satan and his tragic heart and decision when facing the opposition of the people of Israel and the Jewish religious leaders. Beyond that, you must be a person who can feel his tragic heart which even determined to sacrifice his life to destroy all the elements which blocked the way to accomplishing the will of heaven.

You must also be a person who has the mind to be a sacrificial offering for your people by carrying the cross on your back. You must also be a person who can be a living sacrificial offering for the Israelite people, who can harmonize with Jesus' heart who was here two thousand years ago, and who can have the personality of Jesus. You must not be a dead sacrificial offering which yields in front of Satan. You must not give up testifying about God's will, and penetrating deep into Jesus' heart; you must not be defeated fighting against Satan.

Therefore, you can be a true family member only by being a person who at the very brink of death still has strong determination and the heart to lead the enemy to the bosom of God's love. Then, who caused Jesus' heart such sorrow while he was going the way as a representative of God's immense will? People who were the closest to Jesus caused his sorrow. His sorrow wasn't from the rejection of the Israelite people who had been prepared; his sorrow wasn't from the rejection of the believers of Jewish religion. His biggest sorrow came when his beloved disciples, who had followed him, some even for three years, couldn't believed when they had to believe, and couldn't die when they had to die. You must know this correctly. Then what do you have to do to be called a true family member of heaven?

First, each of your individual hearts should harmonize and move together. Through that, you should know to fight for one purpose (will), and for that will, you must know to determine to die to accomplish that will of God. You must be a person who can relieve the sorrow of Jesus which was caused by his passing away without accomplishing heaven's will two thousand years ago. You can be called a true family member when you accomplish all these things. Then, what should you have as you go your course of faith? You should be a person who has true family members. When you go home you should have true family members in that family; when you go to church, you should have true family members in that church; and when you go out into society you should have true family members in that society.

Also as Jesus testified in place of God, fought against Satan in place of God, and died in place of God, 1) you should testify for Jesus, 2) you must fight for Jesus, and 3) you must be willing to die for Jesus. (3-141)

Then up to which level have we come? We have made the Unification Church group. This is as same as establishing the Jewish religion again. Also the group of people in the Unification Church is the same as reestablishing the lost tribe and the lost brothers. In that way we, who are in the Unification Church, are brothers. Without the relationship of brotherhood, the tribe cannot be formed. Also without connecting to the brotherhood relationship, the church and the people cannot be formed. Neither can a nation. Therefore we have the mission to connect centering on the relationship of brotherhood. It is in that sense that the phrase "family member" is used. Since through the family members, the brotherhood relationship is formed, this phrase "family member" can be the foundation for establishing the kingdom of heaven.

You should know that this is why the Unification Church members use the phrase "family member." So between the Unification Church members we have to give and receive the love that Jesus couldn't give and receive. When an elderly person looks at a young person, he should love that young person like Jesus, in place of Jesus' father and mother who didn't love him. By loving that young person from that position, you restore the position of that elderly person which is the same position as the Jewish religion which didn't love Jesus, and the Israelite people who didn't love Jesus. You have to restore the situation of Jesus' elder brother not being able to love Jesus if you are in the position of elder brother or younger brother as family members. It was God's sorrow and Jesus' sorrow that Jesus couldn't share love with his elder brother.

So a person whose age is in the position of elder brother must care for and love the younger person thinking of him as Jesus. Through that, finally God's sorrow that He couldn't love and Jesus' sorrow that he couldn't love his elder brother will be relieved. God's hope was to have the Israelite nation, the Jewish religion, and Joseph's family, which were prepared by Him, to have them love Jesus. Also Jesus' hope was to love them after being loved. In this way, God's hope was to have them love, and Jesus' hope was to love.

But since God's hope to have them love and Jesus' hope to love were broken apart by the cross, God has sorrow, and Jesus has sorrow. So we have to reproduce this and re-indemnify it. So when an elderly person in our Unification Church faces a person younger than himself, he should love that younger person as though he were Jesus' elder brother loving Jesus. And someone who is in the position of younger brother should love an older brother as though he were loving Jesus, since Jesus' younger brother didn't love Jesus as a elder brother. Since Jesus' grandmother didn't love Jesus, people who are in the position of Jesus' grandmother should love people in the Unification Church who are in the position of grandsons as though they were loving Jesus. Also people whose ages are that of a grandson should love the grandmothers (elderly women) to relieve Jesus' sorrow that he couldn't love his grandmother. Like this, every single one of our family members should set up a relationship centering on Jesus, from the children, to the youths, to the adults, and the elderly.

The believers of the Unification Church are the people who were gathered inside one fence to solve the sorrow caused by the Israelite people, the Jewish religion, and the lineage of Joseph, who were supposed to love Jesus, but did not. You have to love Jesus, but since Jesus is not here, you should love a younger person like Jesus. Also, since not being able to love an elderly person was Jesus' sorrow, young people should love the elderly people as if they were in the position of Jesus.

Through that, God's sorrow and Jesus' sorrow will be relieved. When by connecting in this way, we form a new nation, a new church, a new lineage, and a new family, finally God will be able to greet them with happiness, and Jesus can greet them with happiness. You should know that from that a new gate of heaven will open. (37-171)

Today, people of the Unification Church are going a difficult way. We are using the phrase "family member" for the first time in the history. We are using the phrase "brothers and sisters." Oh this holy phrase! This phrase must not disappear even though heaven and the earth disappear. Even though history is swept away by the judgment or this era is swept away by the judgment, this phrase and this reality should live forever. Even after clearing away evil, this family member of hope, this family of hope, and this brotherhood of hope must remain. To do that, for this family member of hope to live, we have to go beyond the historical way of the cross. So we, of course, have our own crosses, and we still have the crosses of the family, the tribe, the nation, and the world. (156-67)

Where did the expressions "we" and "family member" in the Unification Church start from? They started from the tradition of the cross, and the place where blood and tears were shed. Therefore it's a relationship that you can't lose no matter what you would be given for it, and you can't exchange no matter what you would be given for it. If your parents oppose this relationship, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your parents; if your people oppose it, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your people; if your nation opposes it, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your nation; if heaven and the earth oppose it then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with heaven and the earth.

You have to die holding on to this way, and you have to live holding on to this way. You must know that the sorrow is a the world sorrow, so when you seek to relieve the world sorrow you must stick to the way with tears and this is the way that the Unification Church must go and it is the way of the teacher of the Unification Church. (153-64)

The standard of the words "family member" is a high-level standard. If you reach this point, your relationship with your lineage doesn't matter. A lineage, a blood lineage doesn't matter. This place is the place where people who are not in the same blood lineage can have a relationship stronger than that of brothers of the same lineage, and can attend parents who are not their parents in a relationship stronger than that with their parents, and attend a family which is not their family more than their family. (26-19)

Do you walk in and out of the church door as you wish? You can't do that. The "father" that you call out to here is not the father that you should call so easily, and the "family members" are not the something that you should call to so easily. They were built on a foundation where thousands and millions of saints shed sweat and blood. The issue of coming to this holy place is not the matter. In other words, the listening to sermons is not the issue: one's self is the issue. You should critique yourself about whether you still have a tendency to repeat the conventional views of belief and habitual life. (12-10)

Today, we should know all these internal matters; we should determine once more to complete this mission and to establish this will. You must know how important each family member is. If one family member is missing, you are missing an individual that Jesus can love in front of God who has been seeking it through the course of the history of six thousand years, and you are missing the family that Jesus can love, and you are missing the brother that Jesus can love. When you say you love one person, then that one person could be an individual, or could be one person of the family, or could be one person of the brothers. (37-176)

You must realize that you are one family member centering on God. You have to think about how precious the phrase "family member" is. (22-296)

These sons and daughters who gather here are heroes. We call them church members of the Unification Church. We call them family members of the Unification Church. Please let us not to forget this extraordinary heavenly meaning which is hidden in the name "family member." Please let us know the extraordinary fact that without that family member none of us can have the brotherhood relationship, and if we don't have the brotherhood relationship, then we cannot attend the parents. Heavenly Father, we earnestly pray that you will make us one and let us become soldiers of heaven who can go out and fight adoring your day humbly on our bended knees in front of your will. (153-183)

1) We Are the Substantial Fruit of History

Today, when we members of the Unification Church pray, we pray "Ah! We are the substantial fruit of the history," right? If you are the fruit of the history of six thousand years, then the essence of your good ancestors and the essence of your bad ancestors would have reached you, right? So the fruit itself would definitely by affected by those things.

Therefore the reason the state of your spirit is not smooth is because you are spiritually the fruit of both those good ancestors and evil ancestors. Therefore, nowadays, this place is fallen, but all the good things and bad things of history are intersecting here. They intersect, but what do we have to do? We have to make the good things into the main fruit and the bad things like the peelings. Do you understand? Nowadays make all the good things into the main fruit and all the bad things like the peelings. (51-252)

You don't know, but behind one person coming to this place, there is a huge historical effort. The public merit of lots of ancestors has been accumulated. In a field where the owner is harvesting in the fall, he automatically sings a song. A melody of praise comes out. But if there is a person who says "It's too hard. I don't want to do it," while he is harvesting, then he is not the owner. The place where the farmer harvests himself is the place where his effort turns out to be glory; it is not the place where one bears fruit with grief and a sigh. Isn't it a place where the suffering and effort float away and humming accompanies the harvesting, the place where a hopeful tomorrow is promised? It is the same for ourselves. (49-63)

Even if you are living as a poor farmer who is holding a weeding hoe and digging up and eating a bellflower root, you have to have the mind that you are fishing the heavens and the earth with that weeding hoe. You must know that all the kinds of grain are the substantial fruits of the culmination of historical and manmade relationships, and you should be able to praise this. You must know that this kind of person, even though he is living in the deep mountains in a thatched house, will become the leader of the country. From this viewpoint, the Unification Church will be rich on the worldwide level. Do you understand? (26-56)

The people of the Unification Church, who have appeared as the substantial fruit of the harvest, if they are confident and become substantial beings who can accomplish what they pledge before heaven, then we must realize that these beings are really precious beings. We should know to praise them. We should admit their rewarding value, and present them and their praiseworthy appearance without shame in front of anyone from the course of history.

In this era, we must have the confidence to go in front of the 3 billion people of humankind, or in front of the people who have particular rights to be citizens of the most developed country of the world. And furthermore, we should be able to stand up and be able to tell our descendants who will be born later to follow our example of this tradition. You must know that the season when you affirm your own determination is the season of harvest and the season of praise.

Looking at it from this viewpoint, when not just us humankind, not just us believers of the Unification Church, but also lots of spirit persons who are in the spirit world say that the people of the Unification Church are really established as the fruit of the historical harvest, then we have to feel that not just the people of this era, but also the spirits who died and shed blood as sacrificial offerings on the alter of religious martyrdom in the course of the history, those beloved spirits are watching and asking us to solve the sorrow of the whole. They will feel our happiness as a bigger happiness then when they achieved the determination of their own day of triumph. We must not forget that there are a lot of good ancestors like that. (48-350)

Today, when you pray, you proudly say loudly, "we are the fruit of the six thousand years of the history of God's providence." That is right. But if it is so, then the light of your combined history must shine. When something which was lost in history meets an element of life which can bring it to a new level of value, no matter where it is, it is a principle of nature that its original color will greet the new world centering on the sprout which could greet the next spring. Special thoughts and caring are not needed there. It naturally happens like that. There is no reason to complain about whether someone is noticing you or not. (59-32)

You have to go through the winter season to bear fruit. This era is the age of harvest and the age of accomplishment. In the winter season the cold north wind blows and everything freezes. In the middle of that ,new life grows silently while it is buried deep in the earth. If something doesn't bear fruit after it, we have to cut it down. Jesus cursed the fig tree which bore no fruit. He showed the viewpoint of the Last Days. In the Last Days you have to cut them and graft them onto a new branch. (10-303)

If you took at yourselves, if someone asks you, "Who are you?" then you'll say, "I'm a historical fruit." You know that. But what kind of historical fruit are you? A historical fruit fulfills the condition to stand in the position of the coming Lord, having him as a standard, not centering on oneself.

To do that, you have to unite absolutely with the internal standard. You must unite with the internal standard as I absolutely united centering on God, however hard a time I was having. When that standard gets rarefied then you have to eliminate everything and you have to sacrifice the rarefying standard once more. Otherwise, however hard you work it wouldn't be effective. (156-242)

We are the substantial fruits of history. What are we? [The substantial fruits of history] And next we are the substantial fruits of the present age, the substantial fruits of the future. It's awesome! Yes, you are the substantial fruits of history. Then if this kind of substantial fruit has been eaten by worms and bugs and has holes through it, would that be good? When you cut open an apple, is an apple whose black seeds roll out and fall on the ground good, or is an apple whose seeds are sticky and cling to the apple good? You want to become an apple whose seeds are well ripened, don't you? [Yes.]

So you know what's good. Well then, if you were cut open would something like a well-ripened seed come out of you? Do you believe that your second generation will absolutely be the fruit of heaven? If your heart is cut open will a well-ripened Unification Church come out? Would it be all right for this substantial fruit of six thousand years to fall without being ripened like a fruit which falls from the tree? Would it do to worry that the wind might blow and say, "Oh no, it looks like I might fall. If the wind blows even a bit more, I'm going to fall. Reverend Moon, don't shake me. Just let me be still." There are some people here like that.

On the other side there are those who say, "Even if Reverend Moon takes an ax and shakes the branches as he pleases, my branches will never fall until they have been cut." Which side are you on? Are you those who worry whether the wind might blow? [No.] Then which group are you in? [The group which will not fall even if you shake us.] The group which won't fall even if you are shaken? [Yes.] You have spoken well. Is it true? [Yes.] Those who are laughing are on the wrong side.

As people who have backbones, as men who have backbones, as the last substantial fruits, the substantial fruits of the Unification Church, as the substantial fruits of Reverend Moon, as the substantial fruits of God's son, please become the brave fellows who are ashamed before no one. (46-155)

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